Improving Response to Intervention in Students With or at Risk of Reading Disabilities

Summary

The purpose of the proposed studies is to examine a reading intervention for fourth grade students with reading difficulties that integrate work in mindset (beliefs about whether abilities are innate or can be developed) with the academic component of reading. Specifically, the investigators will examine the extent to which integrating mindset intervention improves student response to reading intervention. The investigators will use previous research in intensive reading intervention for students with reading difficulties in the upper elementary grades to examine an intervention that addresses reading skill deficits, while also providing mindset training along with (Study 1) or embedded in (Study 2) the reading intervention. It is hypothesized that students in the reading intervention with mindset conditions will improve their reading outcomes more than students in the reading intervention only and business as usual groups.

Conditions

• Reading Problem

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Reading

Students are taught the processes involved in hearing, seeing, and feeling sounds as well as differences between sounds in words. New knowledge is built on previous knowledge in a step-by-step manner. Sounds build to letter-sound relationships to reading of words and syllables. Students learn the connection between reading of words (decoding) and writing/spelling words (encoding) building from simple words to multisyllabic words to text reading with fluency and understanding.

BEHAVIORAL

Mindset

Blended learning program with online and teacher-directed activities related to how the brain functions, learns, and remembers, and how it changes in a physical way when we exercise it. Instruction in how students are in control of their brain and its development, and how to apply this to their schoolwork with practical strategies for tackling academic challenges.

BEHAVIORAL

Reading Embedded with Mindset

Mindset training explicitly linked to the reading content through lesson openers, feedback prompts, and self-monitoring of mindset during reading work.

BEHAVIORAL

Business as Usual

Reading interventions already provided to students with reading difficulties as per typical procedures at the participating school

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Southern Methodist University

  collaborator OTHER

• Florida State University

  collaborator OTHER

• Vanderbilt University

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

9 Years

Max Age

11 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2017-08-18

Primary Completion

2021-05-31

Completion

2021-05-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations